Art is a very important addition to any landscape design. In many ways, the addition of art makes the garden, but few people think about this aspect of gardening. In this post, I will give you 10 reasons for adding art to the garden. What purpose does it serve? How does it enhance your garden design? How can it be used to make your garden more interesting?
Cleaning up the garden in fall is a tradition as we get ready for winter. Rake the leaves, cut back perennials, cut the grass short – there is lots to do in the fall. The reality is that most of the fall cleanup jobs are not good for the environment. People clean up their gardens in fall for aesthetic reasons, not because it is good for the plants or the garden.
It’s time to rethink the whole process of fall cleanup.
I was reading some gardening Facebook posts and a lady said she buys beneficial pond bacteria for her pond and adds them weekly. WOW! That was news to me. I’ve had a man-made pond for over 8 years that works just fine without added bacteria. I must be missing something important?
Truth be told – I smelled another gardening myth. Let’s have a look.
In 2014 I wrote a post called A Garden Myth is Born – Plants Don’t Purify Air, which has become one of my most popular posts. A recent comment on that post about a video by Mr. Kamal Meattle has prompted me to write today about another story related to plants purifying air.
Mr. Kamal Meattle has become well known for a short TED Talk video where he talks about converting an office building in New Delhi, into the cleanest building in India. His secret is the use of air purifying plants.
It is late June in the shady garden and out of nowhere appears a spotted finger sticking out of the ground. It grows quickly unfolding a huge tripartite shinny leaf. Each lobe is almost as large as my hand. But the real treasure is hidden below the leaf – a striped cobra that needs to be seen to be believed.
Wasps are feared and hated. Granted they do sting if you disturb them but that is no reason to fear them. In this post I will look at 10 wasp myths that will surprise you. Armed with this new knowledge I hope that you will learn to either like wasps or at least hate them less.
As a general background review of wasp facts have a look at Understanding Wasps – They Are Not Evil!
Iris are very common in the garden and often people ask for help to plant, grow, move or divide them. The answer to such questions starts with proper identification. There are many different species iris and they do not all grow the same way. Some have tubers and need to be divided regularly. Others are bulbs and hardly ever need to be divided.
Learning how to grow your iris starts with identifying the type of iris. I am not talking about finding out the actual cultivar name, but you do need to know which type of iris you are dealing with.
In this blog I will help you to identify the type of iris you have. In a future blog I will provide cultural advice for each type of iris.
Dynamic accumulators are plants that accumulate higher-than-average nutrients in their leaves. Some people grow these plants and then either mulch with them or compost them so that these extra nutrients are made available to other plants. This is particularly popular in permaculture circles, but it is also used a lot in organic gardening.
On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Use plants to fertilize your other plants. How can you get more organic than this?
In this post, I will look at the pros and cons of using dynamic accumulators to try and understand how beneficial they are to gardens. In the process, I’ll also uncover some myths about dynamic accumulators.
Why do people hate wasps? They can sting, but 97% of wasp species don’t. A sting hurts but you can do things to avoid being stung. A lot of people have an unhealthy fear of wasps, probably because they know very little about them except for the common yellow jackets which almost every gardener can recognize.
In this post I will explore their world and hopefully reduce your fear of them. I’ll also show you how to avoid getting stung, or at least lower the chance of an encounter. Learn more about wasps – they are extremely important for the garden.
People are starting to like bees, at least a little bit. Now it is time to fall in love with wasps!
Canada will celebrate its 150th birthday in 2017. To mark this celebration, Canada is launching a special tulip called ‘Canada 150’. The white and red colors of the tulip mimic the colors in our flag.
Where did the Canada 150 tulip originate? There are several stories floating around about its origin but much of this is not true. Canadians have been told that the tulip is only sold through a Canadian hardware stored called Home Hardware and is available in limited quantity. So it should be no surprise that ‘imposter tulips’ have been introduced into the Canadian market place. People will do anything for a loonie (the common name for our $1 coin).
Follow me as I try to unravel the mysteries of the special Canada 150 tulip and learn more about the confusing world of naming plant cultivars.
Low-maintenance landscape design is fairly easy to accomplish if you know what you are doing. It is also very easy to make small mistakes that increase the time you need to spend on garden maintenance. Why make extra work for yourself?
In this post, I’ll show you how to reduce your work by looking at 10 common mistakes people make when designing their gardens. Avoiding these mistakes is easy, and doing so usually leads to a better-designed landscape.
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is probably the most popular dynamic accumulator. Permaculturists swear by it, and organic gardeners use it frequently. Thousands of websites make all kinds of claims for it, and if you believe the claims, everyone should be growing comfrey to add nutrients to compost, mulch soil, and make plants grow better.
All of these benefits are derived from the fact that comfrey is one of the best dynamic accumulators – or so people claim. It is time to have a closer look at this miracle worker.
